Qrow Branwen

Hey what if we took the older pessimistic mentor trope and then did absolutely nothing with them as a trope or a character? Just slap Jinx's power on him as a semblance no one'll notice.
Only reason I still watch RWBY is because there were vague illusions to a deeper character for Qrow before he showed up, then he showed up and was something else, but there were still places they could go. Then they had no idea what to do with his character or how to give him an arc so he just became generic storyteller that drinks sometimes. RWBY has issues of "subversions" in the context of characters. Introduce a character, set them up as one thing, show they're the total opposite, say you dodged a cliche. OR set up a character, have ideas about the character, fail to mention or show it to the audience, then compliment yourself when the character changes for the situation. This applies to basically more than half the cast since the very first trailers. Listening to the commentary tracks shouldn't be infuriating, but they found a way.
(When Ruby and Qrow are on a hunt alone together, they have a similar scene to Ellie stealing a porn comic from Bill’s in The Last of Us)
Qrow takes time off as Ozpin’s informant in order to train Ruby. Qrow in Volume 6. In his eyes, he has wasted around 20 years of his life fighting for a lost cause. A cause which Ruby's mother died for. He has suffered major losses, and that, along with his bad luck semblance, drove him to depression, and his alcoholism got worse. And a lot of people got frustrated and wanted him to get a kick in the ass, which I thought was quite sad, since I have seen people in his position and getting berated on top of it all usually doesn't help. And I don't blame Ruby for having gotten frustrated, but a couple of speeches and disgusted looks should not have worked, especially when those speeches did not mention his alcoholism and depression in the slightest. Sure, Ruby doesn't have a responsibility to help him, but he did need some form of help, and he didn't get it. And after the mech fight, he just puts away his flask... why? What changed his outlook? Is it because he thought Ruby did good? He consistently tried to get her to stop the things she was doing, and that still doesn't address his issues at all. They portrayed his issues so realistically, I thought it would get a sort of realistic conclusion. The issue with RT’s writing is that they always only do the surface level of a problem, they never dive into the root of a problem. 
All in all, I can't say I'm satisfied with how they handled Qrow.

Physical Description

Special abilities

Gotta love how qrow was like "I can't be around you guys I'm a literal bad luck charm" yet causally stays and fights alongside them for the whole season with no issue.
Qrow’s Semblance is called “Bad Luck Charm”. His scythe is more like Giremun from Bloodborne.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Why people don’t like the “Qrow is the father” theory. Part because it ruins the family dynamic of the Xiao Longs/Roses and makes Taiyang a cuck. Part because it makes Summer a horrible person by cheating on her husband almost within the year they got married most likely. It also ruins Qrow as a character for me because I love how his regret at not being there to save Summers life makes him drink the pain away as well as becoming a sort of surrogate parent for Ruby and Yang. Whether he feels that way because he had feelings for Summer (I fall into this camp) or because she was his best friend doesn't really matter. Oh it also makes Qrow a horrible person because he either seduced Summer into having sex with him while she was married to one of his best friends or Summer wanted to cheat on Taiyang with him and he just went along with it. It just brings even more drama into STRQ that really isn't needed due to Raven being, you know, part of STRQ.
Because it’s the least interesting path for all the characters. Qrow doesn’t spend time with Ruby because he considers her family despite a lack of actual relation, it’s because he’s secretly her father. Ruby doesn’t model herself after a favorite uncle, but, in sheer coincidence, does it after her father just like Yang. Either Tai wasn’t actually together with Summer or she/Qrow cheated on him, which cheapens 2-3 characters.
But, mostly, because there’s no upside. What does Qrow being her father add to the story? It’s just drama for dramas sake.
For me, it makes literally no sense. What do they (meaning Tai and Qrow) possibly gain from lying to these two kids? What difference is there between "Yang, this is your cousin, Ruby. She's staying with us because her dad, Uncle Qrow, is away with work." rather than the current story? It's not like Qrow disappears forever. He shows up frequently enough that Ruby and Yang recognise and are friendly towards him. So, what would be the point of the lie? Where's the benefit?
But is it heartbreaking enough that it's worth lying to two children for their entire lives about? Especially when Yang had already had her mother abandon her and they were painfully honest about it? Plus, as I said, if we compare Qrow to Raven, Qrow was around a lot more. The discrepancy doesn't make sense.
That doesn't work either. If anything, Ruby and Yang idolised Qrow more because he was the cool uncle who went out on missions and played video games with them and stuff. If they wanted to make it so they didn't follow in his footsteps, why have him around and be impressionable at all?
I just don't think that totally lying about this matter, making is far more convoluted for no real gain, despite being incredibly honest when it comes to similar matters, makes sense in the show.
Oh, yeah. Not like her mum is dead or anything. Definitely no trauma there...
It still seems like a lot of unnecessary deception for very little actual gain. Again, if they can be honest about Raven abandoning her child and Summer dying in battle, I think they can be honest about Qrow going out on missions and frequently coming back to interact with them. If Qrow was Ruby's dad, he'd be the second best parent out of Team STRQ by a long way.
I personally hate it because I think it cheapens Qrow and Ruby's current relationship dynamic. I enjoy the idea that Qrow became so close with his team at Beacon that he cares about their kids like they're his own, even if he isn't related to them. It's something I can't remember seeing in a lot of anime or other epic stories, and the few times I do remember tend to be bigly wholesome. Having him be secretly Ruby's dad just turns it into a bad cliche while sacrificing the value of the "found family" and adoption tropes, and turns Qrow into an irresponsible absentee parent while doing it. Plus depending on the circumstances, it likely does bad things to Summer and Tai's characters as well. I'm personally down with the idea that Qrow had a crush on Summer, but I don't think he ever made a move.
The fact that the "evidence" that so many proponents of this theory like to bring to the table is abjectly fatuous is only the icing on the cake. "Their clothes look the same" congratulations so do Raven, Port, and Scarlet. "She doesn't look like Tai" she doesn't look like Oobleck either - it's irrelevant. "They both use scythes" since when is weapon usage genetic?
It also offends me on behalf of Yang. She's cared for her sister for her entire life, to suddenly find out that their relationship is built on a lie just puts her through the wringer - again since she already had the shock of finding out Summer wasn't her mom - for no benefit to herself. Plus it fucks with the timeline as presented in my second-favorite scene in the entire show, as either the timeline Yang gives Blake in Burning the Candle is wrong or Summer cheated on Tai with Qrow. It doesn't help that the only fanfic I can remember involving the Qrowdad theory was Resurgence, which glossed over Yang's reaction completely in favor of focusing on Ruby's reaction before proceeding as if nothing had ever happened, as part of a conga line of complete shit writing that turned that fic from one of my favorites (first half) to something I hate to even think about (second half.)
Basically, I hate the theory because it takes something good and wholesome and nice, and throws it out the window in favor of an evidence-less twist and considering the FNDM's reaction to twists in general, it doesn't make sense why this should be the twist that everybody likes. It cheapens Qrow's character, potentially turns him and Summer into bad people while further victimizing Tai, and nobody takes Yang into account, and it adds nothing to the show while depriving it of some rare and actually valuable themes.
Unnecessary drama for the sake of drama, useless "character development" and the fact that it would mean that Qrow and Tai have lied to Ruby her whole life. Basically, it brings nothing to the story. In fact I would say it takes away from the story because it makes it so Qrow is no longer the cool, roguish uncle which is a large part of his charm. Yeah, it would also make him look like someone who didn't want to bother with parent stuff and would rather lie to Ruby and burden Tai than do it himself. So...yeah…
I always thought it's because it would shit on any possible relationship between Ruby and Taiyang. Like Taiyang has suffered enough hasn't he? Do we really need to add 'cucked' to all the things Taiyang has gone through? Why can't Tai just win this one thing?

Accomplishments & Achievements

Also the fact that Maria was this LEGENDARY Huntress and yet we don't hear any legend or story or anything about her up until V6 not even from her fan Qrow. That's because their essentially repeating Qrow's character since HE was hinted several times in the early volumes to be a legendary hunter who uses a scythe motif. Look how that panned out.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Honestly, the early Branwen stuff is something I think would be interesting... but I doubt the show would actually explore.
Like
Why does Qrow not consider the tribe his family, when Raven does Who were the elders that sent Qrow and Raven to Beacon? Because the clan Raven is leading has no elder members. She seems to be the oldest person there and everyone else asides from Vernal is a nameless mook or a shit kid What happened to the clan before Raven led it? Because how Raven and Qrow talked up the clan, compared to what they actually are don't match up.
My headcanon is that the tribe ostracized Qrow because of his semblance of misfortune. Which is why Qrow holds them in disdain
But imo, I feel a lot of the Branwen clan and Raven were simply not thought out properly, and an aspect I was looking forward to in V5 became something I absolutely disliked.
Qrow and James have a We Used to Be Friends Situation. Although they seem to be in relatively good terms outside of the work, Qrow distanced himself from James after what happened to the left side of his body. It's possible that happened at one point where they were working together, Qrow blames his own semblance for whatever made James lose half of his body.

Family Ties

Qrow will be an adult male version of Ruby. It would be utterly hilarious if all of Ruby's manners, weird social skills and basic attitude were copied off of her awesome Uncle Qrow. There would most likely be loads of buildup to his appearance, followed by a cut to him and Ruby devouring cookies.
“Blame Me For the Tragedy that Follows” theory. I bet everyone's been waiting for me to churn out one of these. This theory is all about the Branwen twins. I shall be covering several things, one of the most notable, is why Raven left. No doubt we will get our answer at some point in the future and we shall see if my suspicions hold true.
Now then, before we get into the finer details, let's establish who the Branwen twins could allude to. “In Norse mythology, Huginn (from Old Norse "thought") and Muninn (Old Norse "memory" or "mind") are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring information to the god Odin. He worries Huginn may not come back, yet more does he fear for Muninn.” - Wikipedia.
In this instance, Huginn is Qrow and Muninn is Raven. These two essentially flew around Remnant and sent intel to Ozpin. They are his eyes, in some respect. ("You sent me to get intel on our enemy and I'm telling you, our enemy is here.") We can back this up even further with Qrow's symbol: It looks like an eye. And what is that inside the eye? Cogs? Like the ones in Ozpin’s office? It's not obvious, but if Qrow is the left eye, Raven's symbol could be the right, right? I mean, they're twins. Raven gave up her symbol when she left, as it had connections to Ozpin.
The big enemy here is Salem and her main goal has been to divide humanity and..."... so far, she's done a pretty damn good job." Yeah, let's not put the blame on our dusty old crow for what happened to STRQ. Let's blame...Her. ("The last eye is blinded.") SALEM! SHE'S THE REASON RAVEN LEFT! We do not yet know the circumstances of Raven's departure, but we can guess. Raven has access to grimm portals, which at a first glance, you would assume means some form of alliance. Raven's 'interesting way of looking at the world' also backs this up. "The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules."
Yet she was unaware of Salem's situation. She saved Yang. If she was working for Salem, why would she go out of her way to help a member of the team that just might be able to take her out?
Raven's warnings to Qrow could have come direct from the source. Well, Odin sacrificed his right eye to the well of Mímir to become all-knowing. I'm not saying Raven can see the future, as some of you might believe (because that's so Raven), I'm saying she left to get closer to Salem. She saw an opportunity and she took it. "You both act like the easiest way to tackle an obstacle is through it." She made a sacrifice, thinking it be for the greater good, but why is she still blind to the bigger picture? Salem tricked her. It always trickles back to Salem, doesn't it? "Salem's smart. She works from the shadows, using others to get what she wants, so when it comes time to place the blame, we can only point at each other."
So, we've gone into detail as to why Raven is Muninn. Now, let's talk about Qrow. Qrow's problems all seem to be internal. He's at war with himself, he's drunk and bitten off more than he can chew, to put it lightly. Remember what I showed you at the top of this post? Huginn means 'thought'. That’s where this theory comes in: Something seems off about Qrow. I've done some thinking and well, perhaps he's being too hard on himself.
The Branwen siblings grew up in a tribe outside of the kingdoms and named for their semblances. This we know for sure.
We know Raven could have a good luck semblance to counter Qrow's bad luck, as that is what superstition surrounding the bird in question dictates.
The twins were raised under the guise that everything that went wrong was Qrow's fault and Raven received all the praise.
Qrow stated himself that he had no control over his semblance and it could take effect at any given time. No one can control luck. Sometimes, bad things just happen. It's not Qrow's fault. He just thinks it is. It's been engraved into him his entire life.
What if it's all in his head? To some extent, that is. Turning into a bird doesn't necessarily make him the herald of bad luck and misfortune, does it?
The tribe have messed up a perfectly good person, that's what they did. Look at him, he's got anxiety!
To link this to the fairytale theme, I ask, what did the Scarecrow want from the Wizard? A brain. What does this have to do with Qrow? Well, he needs a new perspective. A clear head, if you will. Seriously though, he could think it's his unruly semblance that's attracting grimm to his team while out in the field, but it's actually his angst.
Guys, I think I'm on to something. Qrow's been the talk of the FNDM for the longest time based on his two possible semblances. It's not unheard of for a semblance to develop over time and allow a huntsman or huntress to do more with them. The most obvious example of this is our beloved Schnee family. I'm talking about their glyphs. They do so many different things. Gravity manipulation, time dilation... and of course, summoning. But all these variations are related in the aspect that they rely on their ability to generate glyphs. These glyphs combined with all sorts of dust types can do some pretty cool things. You can apply this developing semblance knowledge to a number of different characters, except for Qrow.
I'm not gonna lie, this kept me up at night. I was determined to figure out what the frick was up with this guy and the more I thought about it and linked up the dots, I wondered, how deep does this rabbit hole go? Let's put this out there right now. Qrow reckons his semblance is 'misfortune'. He causes bad luck for everyone near him to the point where the mere thought of it ruins his relationship with people. He's become so terrified to get close to anyone out of fear of what could happen. To put it simply, he has a crippling anxiety disorder. It's not 'out there, out there' but we've seen him shapeshift into a crow. (N'aw, look he even has a little feather cape.) And here's the raven that hangs around on occasion: (So sleek.) Shapeshifting and misfortune are two completely unrelated things. Yes, okay crows are superstitiously linked to bad luck, but these two abilities that Qrow apparently has do not line up with the rules already established about semblance. They engraved into us pretty early that semblance is linked to a person's aura, an aura is linked to one's soul and so on and so forth, which essentially means without their aura, they can't use their semblance.
Qrow's aura was broken in the fight with Tyrian, yet that plank of wood still was going to fall on Ruby. Qrow still got injured and put a lot of strain on RNJR's trip to Mistral. Qrow said it himself. Sometimes, bad things just happen and maybe this was just one of those things. Maybe the bartender dropping the glass in 'New Challengers...' was just one of those things. Maybe all of it was just one of those things. So, I'm laying there in bed and a thought comes to me. It might not be a question of 'which', it's a question of 'why'.Why does Qrow believe misfortune is his semblance? Let's look over what we know about Qrow's past before Beacon. Most fighters that got into this school have already established what their semblance is at this point, after years of training their aura to take hits, etc.
We now know that Qrow and his sister were raised by a tribe of bandits. The same tribe that Raven now leads. Raven leading the tribe also ties appropriately into this theory. Let me explain. This is where things start to get crazy, but bare with me.
Let's say he and his sister can turn into their namesakes and all the connotations came later. How can the tribe use this to their advantage? Well, they make them believe it. In 'Remembrance' RNJR come across a small village that had been raided by bandits and then overrun by grimm. What are grimm attracted to? Negative emotions. I'm fairly certain that even the bandits have had their fair share of scraps with the grimm and it would not be completely crazy to consider that they have tried to use them to their advantage. What if it happened the other way around? The grimm attack first, and then they send in the bandits to scavenge supplies from the broken village. Sounds a lot safer, right?
How are the tribe going to get the grimm to attack whenever they like? That's where the twins come in. Of course, Raven had it easy because they've raised her to believe that everything goes her way. She's a strong fighter on top of that, so they're going to worship her. Ravens have connotations of good luck and fortune. Qrow did not have it so easy and this probably was the main thing that drove him to leave in the first place. Let's not forget these were the people that raised him and he never knew any other way of life before this. He did not even know what a uniform was, guys. He was Raven's sickly brother that radiated misery and they treated him as such his entire life.
So, I ask you again, how can the tribe get grimm to attack whenever they like? They send in Qrow. He just stands there in the middle of the village and the grimm flock to him like a harbinger of disaster. How unfortunate. Or is it? The grimm aren't attracted to Qrow because of his 'semblance' they're attracted to him because of the negativity the tribe have hammered into him. This is why it's so great for the tribe to have Raven. They've put her on a pedestal to counteract Qrow when they're together. So now the tribe can control the grimm. It's such a cruel concept, but effective, nevertheless. I don't think Qrow could even open his mouth without fear of cursing someone with his 'misfortune'. Qrow feels very strongly about this because he's had to watch first-hand what his 'semblance' has done to people.
The ironic thing is that the only way Qrow can get over his... I'm going to call it 'anxiety' is to spend more time around the people he cares about and that's something he just won't do. I kind of don't want this to be true, because what Qrow went through sounds heart-wrenching, but at the same time, it makes sense. It occurred to me that Qrow is more subjectable to attracting grimm when he's around others, due to his lingering fear of them getting hurt, plus anxiety. This is why I like the idea of Qrow falling for Summer Rose. If she's anything like Ruby, she's his polar opposite at this point and Qrow would need that if this is all true. She made him realize that he could be so much more than this and ultimately, he left his past behind him for good.
All of this because a tribe of bandits were lucky enough to take in two kids that could turn into birds.
It is possible his semblance causes both bad luck and he can be a crow, but on the other hand, why would his semblance be bad luck? I know he said it was but by what we've seen semblances are often linked to personality in universe this is hinted at. Yang has a volatile temper she gets hulk powers, Pyrrha attracts but also repels people she's magnetic, etc. But Qrow as we know him now would not wish harm on anyone he's not fighting. So the question is, was Qrow once a very different person or is there something else we don't know? I have felt like there is more to Qrow's Semblance than "Misfortune" ever since they revealed it. The way the tribe possibly treated him during his childhood like you explain here may have shaped his Semblance in a way (a "everything-bad-that-happens-around-me-is-my-fault" kind of thing), so the "Misfortune" aspect is all he sees. I hope Ruby makes him realize it isn't the case, that there is more to it, possibly with the example you provide, the plank falling after his Aura broke, so it couldn't be because of him. This is actually a very interesting theory. The idea of how the tribe would treat or use him holds up whether his actual semblance is misfortune or if he's just been raised to think it is. I don't know if one person could generate more negativity than your average town generates on its own.
Then again, if they had Qrow journey to a town on his own to get Grimm to follow him to a target, that could work. Alternatively, what if Qrow's semblance is actually a form of probability manipulation, but because of how the tribe treated him, that's why only bad things seem to happen because of it. If Raven had the same semblance, then her being raised the opposite way could cause her to only have good fortune. Great post and it actually does fit in with how I think the twins were treated. Since it would explain why Raven is so eager to go back and Qrow outright rejects them.

Character Prototype

Allusions- Hugin, Scarecrow, Spike( Cowboy Bebop), Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Izumi Curtis, Genkai.